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17

ARIA

Ilie in bed, unable to sleep. How could I sleep when my entire identity shattered like glass just hours ago? I’m not simply Aria, the unlucky orphan. If Chiara is right, I’m Aria DeLuca, daughter of murdered mafia royalty.

Marco made sure Chiara left and promised to protect her should she need it. But his haste to get her out was confusing.

I know he’s worried I’ll be in danger, but I can’t see how knowing my background could be fatal. There’s a difference between knowing something and acting on it.

Marco is now sleeping in these quarters, and I find myself wide awake, checking my phone every few minutes. I texted Chiara the moment she was out of the compound and asked her to reach out when she thought it was safe to meet. I have so many questions about this revelation that press against my chest, making each breath feel like an effort.

DeLuca. All these years, I believed our parents were ordinary people who died in a tragic accident. Middle-class nobodies. Now, I learn I have the lineage of a very powerful name.

What does that mean for me?

Marco’s warning echoes in my head:“Whatever you’ve found about your family, lay to rest, or else…”But can I? The questions multiply like cancer cells—who ordered the hit on my parents? Why were we hidden away? Does Marco know more than he’s telling me? He’s from the same world. He must know something.

My phone vibrates softly against the nightstand. I pick it up instantly.

Chiara: House looks quiet. I’m waiting outside by the east wall. Please come if you can.

My heart hammers against my ribs. Forget safety. I’m already calculating the fastest route to the east wall.

I slip into jeans and a black sweater, shoving my feet into soft-soled boots that won’t make a sound.

I creep down the hallway and stairs, trying to avoid making a sound. The security system is state-of-the-art, but Marco showed me how to bypass it on our third night together. “In case you ever need to get out if we’re attacked,” he’d said, though his tone made it clear he didn’t expect that to happen if he was still around. Now, I enter the code on the panel beside the service entrance, watching the light shift from red to green.

It’s cold outside. The grounds sprawl before me, moonlit and quiet. Too quiet. I know Marco’s men patrol the perimeter, but I don’t see any of them now. They must be on the other side.

I stick to the shadows, slipping from one patch of darkness to the next, staying hidden for when the guards come this way again.

When I reach the east wall, my sister emerges from the darkness like my reflection stepping out of a mirror. We don’t hug. The tension between us still simmers beneath the surface—her abandonment, my resentment.

“You came,” she whispers, her breath fogging in the cool night air.

“I need answers,” I reply, crossing my arms. “You dropped a bomb on me, Chi. How did you find out?”

She offers a ghost of a smile. “Remember when we used to binge those true crime documentaries? I always felt drawn to the organized crime ones, especially the old cases. Now I know why.”

“I want the whole story,” I demand. “From the start.”

Chiara leans against the stone wall.

“It began with a photo—black and white, grainy as hell. I stumbled across it by accident while scrolling through an old newspaper archive; a faded photo caught my eye—Emilio and Sofia DeLuca. But the faces in that photo… they haunted me, Aria. They were so young in the picture. I couldn’t stop staring at it. Something about them felt so familiar.”

My skin prickles with goosebumps that have nothing to do with the night air. “Familiar how?”

“That’s what haunted me for weeks,” Chiara continues, her voice dropping lower. “Until one night, I finally understood. They looked like our parents, Aria—just like that photograph we’ve held onto all these years.”

The photograph—a worn, creased image of a smiling couple the orphanage gave us, said to be our parents before they died. Chiara and I had copies made, and I’ve slept with mine tucked under my pillow for twenty-five years.

“The photo in the archives was so grainy, I thought I was imagining things,” she says. “I had a computer expert enhance the image. When I compared them side by side… they were the same people, Aria. Our parents weren’t random strangers lost in a car crash. They were Emilio and Sofia DeLuca.”

My legs weaken beneath me. I reach for the wall to steady myself.

“I went back to the orphanage,” Chiara continues. “Asked questions about our parents, our arrival there. The director gaveme the same story we’ve always heard, but her eyes… they had fear in them, Aria. Real fear.”

“So what did you do?” I ask, already knowing my sister’s relentless nature.